Vettel and Webber lock out the front row in Australian qualifying

Red Bull took the front row of the grid for the Australian Grand Prix tomorrow, with Sebastian Vettel leading local boy Mark Webber.

Vettel’s Q3 time of 1.23.919 was the fastest of the weekend so far, and was a tenth of a second ahead of Webber. Fernando Alonso’s best lap time was 1.24.111, putting him in third place. The biggest susprise of qualifying was Lewis Hamilton failing to get into Q3, the first of the top 4 teams to do so this season.

Q1

Red Bull were the only team who managed to get through to Q2 using only the hard tyres, which are believed to be half a second slower than the softer tyre. Hamilton, Button and Alonso, as well as the Red Bulls, were all able to get through with only 1 run. As expected, the new 3 teams filled up the back 3 rows of the grid, but HRT have now improved well from Bahrain. The two Lotus drivers finished ahead of Virgin and HRT. However, Jarno Tulli’s performance was hindered by a broken seat.

Sebastien Buemi would have been knocked out with the new teams, but for a last-gasp effort to put Vitaly Petrovin his place. The Russian might have got through to Q2, but a mistake at Turns 11 and 12 slowed him down considerably.

Drivers knocked out in Q1:

18)Sebatien Buemi

19)Heikki Kovalainen

20)Jarno Trulli

21)Timo Glock

22)Lucas di Grassi

23)Bruno Senna

24)Karun Chandhok

Q2

The biggest surprise of this session was that Lewis Hamilton failed to get through to Q3. He did two runs on the soft tyre, and was only a small fraction of a second behind Robert Kubica, but ended up 11th.

While Nico Hulkenberg only qualified 15th, Rubens Barrichello was 7 tenths faster, and got through to Q3. The Saubers struggled again, with Pedro de la Rosa and Kamui Kobayashi getting 14th and 16th respectively.Toro Rosso did well, with Sebastien Buemi getting 12th, and Jaime Alguersuari ending up 17th.

Drivers knocked out in Q2:

11)Lewis Hamilton

12)Sebastien Buemi

13)Vitantonio Liuzzi

14)Pedro de la Rosa

15)Nico Hulkenberg

16)Kamui Kobayashi

17)Jaime Alguersuari

Q3

Webber was initially fastest, getting ahead of Alonso. But, Vettel’s fastest lap of the weekend threw him off the top spot, despite a mistake in the final sector.All of the top drivers’ final runs were fruitless, with little improvement from their efforts.

At the end of the session, both Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher tried a run on the hard tyres, but neither improved on their time. It is clear that they were trying to improve their chances in the race, by going further in the first stint.